Holidays in Boston
by Shinsei Tonbo
Summary: Two very old friends meet up in Boston on holiday for drinks for the first time in many decades. They discuss their friends, love, the past when they were young, and life since they last parted ways. Companion to Imprisoned, Secret of the Desert Series.


It was nice, having the chance to go on holiday. Between the two of them, him and Sherlock, it was often amazing that they managed to pay the rent, even as lowered as Mrs. Hudson had it, let alone grant him the chance to plan and actually go on a _holiday_.

He had some vacation time built up from his part time job at the clinic and, surprisingly, Mycroft had offered to send him somewhere when his plans to visit the country had fallen through due to a case he had given Sherlock. So since Sherlock was off visiting Mummy after working that bit for his brother and being scolded for not coming home often enough, he'd decided that visiting old roots was the plan.

That was how he ended up in Boston, in an older bar having drinks with the only other man near his age.

They sat in the back a dive bar that had been new the last time they'd been in Boston together, over sixty years ago and both soldiers on leave. That time it had been Adam that was the Army Doctor and he'd been a Marine. Now it was a dimly lit establishment and mostly shabby, not much having been upgraded, bits and pieces having been lost to age and the rowdy patrons the bar'd had over the years. They were sitting in silence, watching the people around them as they drowned themselves in the libations available.

When they did finally begin talking it was in a language no man had heard for close to three thousand years, names being the only things said in anything resembling their modern phonetic existences. Neither looked at the other, simply relaxing and watching as the world, mortals, sped by them with their much shorter life spans and talked lowly to each other, reminiscing about life since they'd last been together.

"London?"

"As dreary and rainy as always. Though there has been a rise in murder lately. It's been keeping life interesting. Paris?"

"The same, too many tourists now though, everyone thinking the place romantic. Oh, and Amanda asked me to pass on her thanks for covering for her in Afghanistan, how was that by the way?"

"Was good before I got shot, had to let it heal slow and I had to put a hunk of wood in there so no one would get suspicious and that all was normal for a while. I cut it out when Sherlock had to go on a trip; I'm surprised he hasn't noticed that it no longer bugs me."

"That roommate of yours, then? Still mortal?"

"Yep, though after learning more about him and his methods, I don't think he'll last much longer. He's even got himself a nemesis, Moriarty."

"You're kidding? One that's not immortal? In this age?"

John nodded, "Subdued me with five henchmen and strapped a bomb made of Semtex to my chest in order to hurt him. It was definitely going to hurt. Hell, the explosion still hurt _without_ it on. I don't think Mycroft quite believed me when I said I just dove into one of the cubicles to avoid the blast. Sherlock of course hit his head and can't remember past shooting the damn thing. I'm lucky I'm as old as I am, I heal damn quick and after taking the brunt of it if I'd been a new born I'd of still been dead and then they'd have put me in the morgue."

"Yes waking up in morgues always puts a damper on things, lucky you."

John couldn't help scowling and smacking Adam for his cheek in the shoulder.

"I mean it Adam. Being Sherlock's 'colleague' is the most fun I've had since I went by Jack. I even had the passing thought of whether he'd be able to catch me if I picked up a knife again."

Adam stared at him, one eyebrow high, "You realize that if you do that Macleod _will_ come after you for your head, right? He already thinks some of the worst of you—he still thinks some of the worst of _me._ Unfortunately, you don't have the benefit of having his friendship."

John shrugged, "I know. Besides, I think it will be more fun tagging along. Did I ever tell you what happened the first time I followed him on a case?"

"No but I did read your blog, interesting really. But you shot the cabbie didn't you, not 'someone.'"

John grinned predatorily at the smirk Adam shot him, "What else was I supposed to do? Poison would have been a terrible way to go besides, I hadn't had that much fun in ages and I don't think Sherlock would take disappearing well after he woke up again. You know me, I'm not one to let things that amuse me go, especially since I know Macleod will come after me. By the way, how are the watchers doing? Figured you out have they? You shouldn't have left that journal where they could find it." 

Adam scowled into his brew before he took a long gulp of it, "Yeah yeah, I know. I still want to know how you've avoided them after all these years, but then again they didn't call you the Secret of the Desert for nothing, did they."

John just grinned and took another long pull of his draft as well, "You're not too bad at it yourself, you know, pretending to be a watcher for all these years. I have to admit, when I realized where and whom you were hiding amongst I was surprised you didn't rat me out."

"It was a close thing, I assure you," Adam couldn't help the mischievous grin that pulled at his face before he took another swallow, "but I know how much you enjoy pretending to be the most benign being possible before you have to act."

They both snorted into their drinks at the thought, both knowing the other couldn't stay out of trouble without sequestering themselves to holy ground in some way, shape, or form for decades on end. They were silent for a long period of time after that, lost in memories of past shenanigans and times of where they'd been on the same or opposite sides of each other.

The atmosphere became somber when the thoughts of his last romantic attachment, a woman named Evelyn, floated through his mind. She'd died of typhoid in the early 1900's, She was one of the few that he had thought he might have been able to give all of himself too, only for her to be stolen from him. As the bittersweet memories played through John's mind, they led him to Adam's most recent love, a woman whose life was also taken before her time.

"I'm sorry about Alexa, Adam. I heard you had tried to find the Methuselah Stone to make her like us. I'm sorry you were unable too, she sounds like a wonderful woman to have known."

The wan smile Adam managed to give him told John his friend was coping, though still saddened by the loss of a woman who had accepted him in his entirety.

"She was the only lover, only _wife_, I've ever had and told everything too. She didn't judge me, only said that my past is my past and what matters is who I am now. I am ashamed to admit that when I had returned, after failing to retrieve that damned stone, I almost didn't go in there to sit by her side, already anticipating the pain I was going to feel at her passing. Does that make me a horrid being, Chisisi?"

John huffed a dark laugh, "No more than I am for the thought of killing people again just to make life interesting, to entice the current focus of my life, Methos. That you went in there and sat by her as she went only proves that you are a strong man, fearful of what you know will hurt, but strong for enduring it, for loving a woman you knew you couldn't spend the rest of your life with."

"You've done it before, yourself."

A self-depreciating look crossed the blond man's face, "That may be, but it was never with someone who knew all of my secrets, Methos. I've never let myself be so close to anyone, save possibly you. It makes you a better man than I."

Methos, with his only infinitesimally older age, recognized the emotion the man before him was feeling, for he'd felt it too, not long be for he met Alexa. Those younglings, Richie and Macleod and so many of the others past and present, would never understand. They had decades, centuries, possibly even a millennium of life over their loved ones, stories that were so much easier to tell because they resembled the modern world, even if it was only slight bit, more than either of their pasts. They were the oldest, only a century or two separating them in age, and with that age came a gap that grew larger as time went on. It became so much harder to connect, to react as time passed and the two of them knew it well.

"Well, you seem to be close to Sherlock. You've trusted him awfully quick, even if it is only with this life's information. Who knows, maybe you'll tell him all about yourself when you think he'll take well."

John couldn't help the sigh that escaped him before he took a drink and looked to his friend and smiled a slightly at him, "Yeah, I suppose. We may know the past but never the future. I guess for once I'll just have to stick around and see."

They shared small commiserating grins and continued to drink long into the night. Eventually they made their way back to the hotel room Mycroft had booked John for both to die of alcohol poisoning in the early morning. Both had decided long ago that dying by alcohol was a far easier way to spend a night after heavy drinking than dealing with the hangover the next day. And when they awoke neither cared if they were in bed together or any of the other evidence left over from a night well spent. They were the oldest being living, they were allowed to be childish, drinking fiends every once in a while.

Besides, misery, like life and love and happiness, loves company and who better to spend that time with than the only other person to understand?


End file.
